Home schooling

[Chisamba]

My hubby and I were recently invited to dinner with new acquaintances. The topic of home schooling came up. ( I avoid the topic usually lol) and I mentioned , I thought in simple conversation, that I had hated being home schooled. Apparently one is not allowed to have a personal opinion about the topic.

That said, this person went on for perhaps an hour about how home schooling in NJ is not good enough and how in Arizona the home schooling is so well organized they meet together for science fairs. Sports. Social interaction, bicycling together etc. And how her NJ grandchild left home at 13 to move in with her cousins for the opportunity at a better home schooling experience.

So I am so puzzled, isn't organized education actually school? Doesn't said gran child sound like she simply wants a school experience.

Dh gave me the look of death, which being is a warning that no matter how curious I am, a question is not going to be well received. And he is usually right about these things but it's been bothering me for days.

Why send a girl across the country amen she could just go to school?

I'm making this personal but I wanted team sports i wanted to learn art and Piano and did not learn socialization skills. By the time i went to high school everyone already could play all the sports and i was way behind in skills, art and piano were only for skilled participants and it was painful to learn non existsnt sicial skills at a high school boarding school.

[exvet]

My next door neighbors home-schooled their kids for 6 months. They were on multiple wait lists for private and charter schools. They had pulled their kids from public school due to the politics and topics being taught. Their boys are 7 and 9. I was amazed to find out about the 'focus' groups that have developed for social interaction, scholastic topics et al, mostly out of the recognition from parents who have been home schooling here (in Arizona) that kids need to learn how to communicate in person, learn how to work as a team, express themselves in front of peers, etc. My neighbor found the home schooling endeavor absolutely exhausting to the point she almost would have sent her kids to boarding school (not really but you get my point) had it continued. As soon as two spots became available at one of the few schools they felt comfortable with, they went back to the classroom. From what I hear, parents and kids are happier.

My niece was also homeschooled for a time. She is now 36 and has been working as a teacher since college graduation, having been named teacher of the year more than once for her grade/state. I will describe her as one of the most open-minded of the educated that I know and yet, she feels that homeschooling in most situations does create barriers that may or may not be overcome for those children who are educated in such a fashion and for many of the reasons you cite.

My children went to a charter school. While I think Arizona's education system sucks (sorry cuz, also a teacher and a very good one) I do think its development of charter schools has been a strong spot and as I understand it this is how many of the homeschool 'programs/focus groups' developed, using programs for music, art, social clubs developed by the charter school 'system'. With my career, shamefully I must admit that homeschooling was never feasible and the multiple times my ex husband broached it as 'a solution' I (and my parents) vehemently opposed. I can only say that I'm thankful I don't have any school aged children or grand children now. I see so many socially awkward young adults due to the style of education they were exposed to and shudder as to what I think I might see in the future; however, the options for young child development provided through the public domain, especially here in Arizona, are pretty scary no matter what side of the political aisle you choose to sit.

Chisamba I had to giggle though my father would act the same way whenever my parents were out in a social setting and the topic of religion entered the conversation. My mother never could help herself............ended up with some pretty interesting outcomes.

[Tanga]

As a teacher who, thankfully, retired before Covid, I think homeschooling tends to be a way for parents to keep control of the kids and manipulate them into what they want. Covid taught a lot of parents how insanely hard it is to teach, and the loss of basic manners and ability to behave and think is not just from being on lockdown--it's from the parents who didn't teach them. Go on reddit teachers if you want to see the nightmare of what resulted.

My guess is the parents are rather whacko and they can insulate the child from "devious" influences more, like information, outside opinions, seeing different kinds of people, and that was easier to do in another state.

I am with your mom, exvet. When I think someone has a POV that is horrible, I will totally jump in.

[Chisamba]

BUT: no matter how academically savvy you may be as a parent, you know that you do not get in home schooling?

Diversity. And I do not only mean cultural Diversity, I mean families. Single patent families, grandparents families, divorced families, unhappy families, gender diversities, special needs children, succesful kids, kids who can cope, kids who can't cope, if you do not at these things you do not know how to separate yourself, how to engage yourself, or to empathize, how to accept. If you see success you believe you can.

And I have not begun to address opportunity. Opportunities to learn the enthusiasm of coaches, artists, musicians, both among peers and among teachers.

Oh well. I grew up on a farm, with no electricity and no computer an no television. My schooling was mailed in packages. Lol. I drew a piano keyboard on cardboard to try to learn th fingerings for scales and arpeggios for music class.

I put a dead mouse on an anthill so the ants would clean the carcass to wire together a skeleton for biology.

I made a terrarium on a plow disc for botany.
The first time I saw a girl with an intellectual disability I was shocked and without intending to behaved in a very inappropriate way.

I feel as though the gathering of a group of people from different races, cultural backgrounds , religion and abilities is perhaps the most valuable characteristic of school.

[khall]

Amen Chisamba. I can see some parents pov for home schooling in bad school districts but imo that should be part of parent’s decision on where to live.

Our DS went to a private school. Was religious based but it was the quality of education we were looking for him. He needed to be challenged and graduated with honors. The school prepared him for college as he is about to graduate with an engineering degree next month with honors and has been accepted into masters program at Georgia Tech.

[Moutaineer]

My oldest stepson and his wife decided to go on a great round the world adventure with their 3 kids. Planning to be traveling for at least two years. Thought they'd home school them. Neither of them are teachers. It wasn't a success.

9 months later travel plans were shelved and they landed in England and got those 3 little savages into school as fast as they could. They've had some real difficulties catching up.

[Tanga]

Amen, too, Chisamba.

And that's it. You don't get diversity of anything. I taught in a school district with 150 languages (one of the most diverse areas in the country.) It's really uncomfortable for me to go places where people aren't in a huge variety. I learned so much from all of this diversity and all of these backgrounds and cultures. I never had "holiday" parties because there were so many difference, but multicultural ones. I did have an ulterior motive, though--the food! S much amazing food! Lumpia is the food of the gods.

I live on a tiny dead end cross street with maybe 30 houses, and I would say the primary language is Chinese or Spanish, then English, then Tagalog, and we used to have Arabic and a few others. I think a huge problem in the world is fear of "other." The good thing is even home schooled kids now probably have phones and at least exposure to it.

[khall]

My family and I and the friends I’ve traveled with have loved our trips to other countries. Even when we don’t speak the language we’ve always had a great experience there. It’s so important to get out of your small community to see how others live

[Snork]

Never, in a million years, would have thought I'd homeschool my child[ren] but here we are. I homeschool one of my daughters.

I want to start off by saying that I didn't intend to homeschool. I didn't want to homeschool. I thought homeschooling was a thing religious wackos living in hovels somewhere, potentially doing other terrible things to their children, do to their children. Or perhaps those whacked out hippies who don't care about education anyway. And what about the socialization? I'm neither hippie nor religious, I had a lovely school experience, I am a child of a teacher. I was also raised with the belief of Education Above All.

When COVID hit and *I* pulled my two out to homeschool. I was horrified at what I'd done, sick to my stomach. My mom was horrified, and, no doubt, sick to her stomach. Everyone was horrified except my husband whose sister had homeschooled her kids (now four successful engineers).

I got through the first few months by repeating my mantra of "it can't be worse than what they'd be getting at school." I also had a fallback - a friend of mine, frustrated to no end with lack of education for highly gifted kids had opened her own school with college professors teaching very small groups of kiddos on the side, and since she knew my oldest kid, and I knew she'd find my two a place at her school if we needed to go back to "regular" schooling (spots in good schools in Chicago are hard to come by).

After a year and half homeschooling (during COVID, no less) my oldest went back to school. She is super social, doesn't think much about being "bossed about" by mom and, frankly, while academically I was able to both fill the holes left by the "educational equity" and push her forward, socio-emotionally homeschooling her was a disaster. It was a fight every day. She cried, I cried, we both cried, you name it, it happened. It felt, at times, as if I had irreversibly ruined both of our lives. In the end, she's fine, I'm fine, we're all fine and there's been no lasting damage - she tested into a selective "early high school" program, has completed that successfully, and tested into, and is currently about to turn down an offer to, a top 5 public high school in the US because she likes her current school (also in the top 100) better.

My youngest, however, thrives at home. We're always adjusting as we go but homeschool has been a great fit for her. Now, finishing 7th grade by age, she takes all high school honors level classes in combination through the gifted programs at Northwestern and Hopkins (online), and me teaching at home. Her online classes have kids ranging from accomplished high schoolers to other smart "littles" like her from all over the country. One full day a week so also spends at a co-school co-op where she has to work in a group of kids of very differing abilities. She competes in Science Olympiad where she is part of a team. I monitor her progress with yearly national achievement tests.

I love homeschooling her and I'm so grateful for this time we have together. Every year she has a choice whether she will go back to school or stay at home, and so far she's choosing homeschool. I expect she'll want to go back to "real" school for high school but recently she's been asking about possibility of moving out of the city and living somewhere more rural with her going to Stanford online high school. We will see how this goes.

When I started I only knew a smattering homeschool parents and kids. They were good, smart kids and very nice parents but I just didn't know that many. Now, through the co-school and Science Olympiad I've met quite a few. It's not at all the demographic I thought they [we? I guess I have to say we since I'm homeschooling now too] would be. In our group, most parents are extremely well educated, many themselves in higher education including a couple of college professors. Some of their kids are homeschooled and some are in a public school. The alma maters of the parents read like a list of aspirational universities for any high achieving high school student. These are not the hovel people, nor are these people unworldly trying to keep their kids from being exposed to the reality. Our tiny, little Science Olympiad team where most kids have to handle each event on their own (as opposed to "regular" school teams that have enough kids for them to have a partner on each event) regularly beat such venerable teams as Latin and Lab school plus all of the illustrious selective public high school teams. There are, of course, still the scary people living in the hovel homeschooling their kids, but that's not my group and, as I now know, by far not the only group.

So homeschooling CAN work but it has to be a very specific set of circumstances. First, you need to have a kid who WANTS to be homeschooled, with all that entails, good and bad. The child also must have a choice at all times to choose the schooling method if the child does not feel the current situation works. You have to be flexible, because, first and foremost, homeschool is a child-led education. The kids have a lot of say, and a lot of responsibility in their own education. Then, you need to be honest with your own ability. I can teach math up to high school level but, not being a native speaker, I am not going to be able to teach English and I'd be fumbling through humanities. Don't be a doofus, seek appropriate help. Third, socialization, both in terms of exposure to other kids and exposure to other adults who set standards in a different way than the teaching parent[s], have different expectations and different assessment strategies, is absolutely vital. Find your tribe. Ultimately, the goal is a well rounded graduate who fares BETTER than a public school kid. If it's not better, you shouldn't do it. Finally, it has to be fun but for the right child and parent combination, it can work.

Chisamba, I think the lady you spoke with at the party is misguided. It's not homeschooling if she sent her kid to Arizona. NJ grandkid has simply been shipped off to AZ for a fake boarding school experience without much parental oversight.

In a funny connection to UDBB, one of the things that made me feel a little better about pulling my girls out to homeschool, was the memory of bjrdq homeschooling her daughter.

[Chisamba]

I had no trouble with how schooling academically. It was without a doubt the immersion in a group of people with likeable, not likeable, social, unsocial, liars, and the social diaspora that I did not know i needed and that i did not get. I also missed out on sports, music, art and staging plays, acting , et al. Of course my home schooling was done through the mail in the absence of the world wide web.

[blob]

I also wonder if the kids who thrive in home schooling environments are actually the ones that might benefit from traditional school environments the most. So much of what you learn at school goes beyond the academics and is echoed in other aspects of life.

I don't think I would have been successful in college without high school (and i don't mean academically). And the same goes for the business world. Just like high school, the corporate world is not about how much you know or how smart you are, it is about how you communicate with others, navigate 'in' crowds, balance working with and for personalities who you may not like and who may not like you, not having the resources or the attention or the focus you need to do your best work.